Brand, vision for the product and such are one thing. Vague demands and pressures by the financial sector are another. Partly due to actual risk, and partially

Brand, vision for the product and such are one thing. Vague demands and pressures by the financial sector are another. Partly due to actual risk, and partially because of stigma... payment processing costs are substantially higher in "sin sectors." Often they use specialised services targeting just these industries. I assume financing has similar issues. Merchant banks don't want to add a porn bond to their portfolio, and those who do want a premium. Premiums count for a lot these days. A valuation anti-premium, at the extreme end, might turn a billion dollar company into a $100m. Private tech company valuations can be quite squishy. We have so much structure in the economy now. High finance has always been structured, but the lower tiers were more significant when startup valuations were more modest. Once valuations hit billions, finance is high finance more or less by definition. That means the high finance cabal has a lot of say. Meanwhile, users are structured by Google, FB and a handful of others. AWS is gradually becoming both monopolistic and opinionated. Payments systems are bottlenecked, with a structure related to the high finance structure. What does and doesn't get built, or succeeds in a highly structured world is different to a more free market situation.